I guess it was pretty unfair of me to say back in chapter 1 that at the
time of my surgeries Glen was my best friend. At least it was
inaccurate to say that. He and I had become really close in the
months between my break up with Alan
and the trip up to the cabin. Don and I'd had our ups and downs,
sure. Alan and I had our ins and outs (heh heh). But I
think that my friendship with Glen was different because I'd never had
a crush on him; we were just great friends. He'd turn to me when
things were shitty with Theresa, which was often. Over time he'd
even come to trust me more than anybody else that was in his life,
including her; this he told me himself. I had no grand illusions,
though, of having anything more than a friendship with him, and that
helped to keep things uncomplicated.

My first surgery, where they removed the enlarged lymph node from my
neck, went well. The following week I went to see Dr. Kahn and he
informed me in that not-so-great manner of his that I had cancer.
Then you'll remember the bone marrow aspiration, followed by the
lymphangiogram. I knew that there was some bullshit Latin name to
describe the dye injection into my feet. With all of the c.t.
scans that I'd had, however, the only thing that showed up as an
abnormality was some tissue in my lungs. My parents and I met
with a thoracic surgeon who explained that the tissue was more than
likely some leftover scar tissue from having had] the flu or a really
bad cold. Still, he wanted to take a biopsy of it for
examination, again to be sure that it wasn't tissue affected by the
Hodgkin's.

The surgery had to wait, though, until I came back from Florida!
Because the lymph removal from my neck was practically non-invasive we
didn't have to wait long between that surgery and the upcoming
thoracotomy. I was scheduled to go into the hospital two days
after we were to come back from Panama City. I was psyched!
Not because of the surgery, but because we'd be staying in a high-rise
condo on the beach instead of some cheap[-]ass motel on the
strip. Well, that's how it was supposed to be.

You'll remember that George was to be on leave for about a week in the
middle of July and we had all planned on going to Panama to celebrate
(i.e. get drunk a lot). That was when the bullshit started to
fly. I'll go ahead and remind you, also, that Blake had offered
up his family's condo for us to stay in. Once the trip had become
finalized, he reneged on having George accompany us. You see, out
of the millions of times we'd all been drunk or drinking, Blake
witnessed George getting really sloppy drunk one time at another
friend's house and puking. No big shit; we've all done it once or
thrice. Our original invite list included Blake, George, Glen and
me. Alan's family would be at St. George at that time, and he
wouldn't be going. Then one day I got a call from Blake saying
that he didn't want George staying in his condo because of the puking
incident the previous year. Previous year, I said.

I thought it was ridiculous, I'd told Blake, because the entire purpose
of going to Panama City in the first place was to celebrate George's
graduation from the training school. He said he knew that but he
just really didn't want to deal with George possibly puking while at
his family's condo. I told him that I was immovable on the
matter; he thought I'd just cool my jets and then accept it. I
never mentioned a word about it to George, and Glen stayed out of it
completely. He thought it was all bullshit, but was friends with
Blake and understood what he was saying; but at the same time he was
really good friends with me and didn't want to take sides.
Unfortunately, he ended up backing out of the trip entirely.

The whole time this bullshit's going on between Blake and me, and I'm
dealing with my own medical issues to boot, and I find out that Scott
and Philip have been invited by Blake to go to Panama. You're
fucking kidding, right? Matt, who was still home on leave,
actually had the audacity to get irritated at me and say that I was
taking things too far in pushing for George to go with us--I should
just chill out and do something with George later if I wanted to
celebrate. Complete and utter bullshit, which I had no qualms
about sharing with Matt. I never understood why he even had an
opinion, because his leave was up the week before the planned trip, and
he wasn't going to be with us in the first place.

Y'all will remember Kent, my friend from high school who was also in my
psychology class at DeKalb College. In the year since he and I
had that class together we didn't really hang out that much, save for a
phone call or two. Well Kent had heard through the grapevine that
I'd had cancer and began stopping by to visit or go to the mall with me
or whatever. It was God-sent support that totally surprised
me. Here I was going through some medical issues (and there were
to be even more upcoming surgeries) and the people that I'd hung out
with were giving me shit about George. Then out of the blue, here
comes Kent offering the kind of support that at least Blake and Scott
should have been giving. I didn't really expect anything from
Philip because he'd ended our friendship (albeit rather bizarrely) the
year before. Kent, who was friends with Matt, had gone over to
his house to find out why the guys had dropped from the radar in my
life. Matt told him that he was having a hard time dealing with,
and didn't like to deal with, the fact that I had cancer. Kent
told him to imagine how I felt actually being the one to have it.

Was I confused? Hell no. I knew exactly what to do. I
was going to go to Florida with my friend George, to celebrate, hang
out, lay out and do whatever else we felt like. I ended up
telling Blake and Scott that I wouldn't dick my friend over like
that. That hand just wasn't in my deck of cards. Instead I
asked Kent to come down with us, which he did, and the three of us had
a great time. We drank, laid out, played putt-putt, drank a bit
more, ate cheap food and got good and sunburned. One afternoon
when I was drunk by the pool, I poured a whole bottle of "Sun In" into
my hair. Note to self: Paul doesn't look good with
orange-ish hair.

To this day I haven't seen Matt, Blake, Scott or Philip. I never
got a call from them expressing concern over any of my medical
issues. That hurt a lot because I would've never tossed a
friendship aside, especially if my friend was going through some really
tough times. But what are ya gonna do.

We returned on a Monday and my surgery was scheduled for
Wednesday. Tuesday evening Alan called to check in on me.
He and his parents had just come back from Florida as well. I
gave him the low down on what all had transpired with the other guys,
and that George, Kent and I had ended up staying at a motel on the
strip instead of in a plush condo.

"Are you nervous about tomorrow?" he asked.

"Eh. Not really. I'll just be glad when all of this shit's
done. I'm ready to get on with my life."

He chuckled a bit. "I'll bet. How long will you be in the
hospital?"

"I'own know. They said I might be coming home either Saturday or
Sunday, depending on how I heal up."

"What all are they doin' tomorrow?"

"They're goin' in to take a biopsy of some tissue they've found in my
lung, just to see if it's regular scar tissue or cancer-affected."

"Sounds 'big-time'."

"It is. The doctor said when they cut into the lung that it'll
more'n likely collapse, and I'll end up in i.c.u. for observation while
it re-pressurizes or de-pressurizes or whatever. Should be in
there a day or two before going to a regular room."

"Damn."

"Yeah," I laughed. "Tell me about it. Say, when do you head
back up to Athens?"

"Last weekend of the month. I got a call from the coach who said
that with some extra hard training I may be able to move up to first
string this coming year."

"Well, I'm glad for ya then. Hope it all works out. Does
this mean that you'll be hitting that two hundred pound mark?"

"Uh, Eunice, I'm at that already."

"Well shit, I didn't know."

"You mean you didn't notice how much bigger I'd gotten when we were in
the mountains?" He chuckled a bit, being a braggart.

"Actually Alan, I could feel the difference when you were
asleep...after the nightmare." That was followed by a few moments
of silence. I'm not sure what he was thinking, but I was enjoying
the memory of his arm holding on to me. "Well," I said, ending
the silence, "I'd better hit the dusty trail. Gotta get up early
tomorrow."

"Alright buddy. I guess I'll see ya sometime tomorrow."

"You comin' up?"

"Uh....yeah. Am I not supposed to?" he asked, being a goof.

"No, it's just that...I don't know how they do the i.c.u. and
visiting...whatever. We'll see ya tomorrow."

"Good night."

" 'Night," I said.

* * * * * *

I'm not really sure how to describe what happened after the surgery was
finished. The only way to describe what happened was a sudden
awareness on my part. I felt his presence in the room. I
kid you not, and it was as tangible as the smell of a flower or the
warmth of a bath. The last thing I recalled before the surgery
was that mask[‘S] being lowered onto my face. Then I knew, I
fuckin' knew that he was in the room with me. I could feel his
presence before I even started to become conscious. Have you ever
been asleep, but your sleep was light enough that you could hear what
was going on around you? You're not awake but one of your senses
is, and then the rest of you wakes up. I felt Alan in the room,
and not just in the room, but I could feel that he was across the room
from my bed. Something inside me told me to open my eyes. I
did and then I smiled. Sure enough, I could faintly make out his
shape standing at the sliding glass door of the room.

I still felt the smile on my face but I couldn't hold my eyes open any
longer. The voices were becoming clearer, though they still
sounded a million miles away.

"Alan, he knows you're here," I heard my dad say. Then I felt his
hand holding my wrist and I turned my head toward him - as much as I
could in my drugged state.

"Hey bud, you're doin' great," he said softly. I barely nodded....

* * * * *

I slowly became aware of a couple of people in the room. The
sunlight was different so I knew it was later in the day. That's
when the pain and discomfort started settling in. My parents and
the nurse were explaining to me about the morphine drip, and how I
could activate it by pushing a button.

Ding! I loved that trigger.

* * * * *

Some time later I became aware of a presence in my ribs. It
turned out to be two tubes that had been inserted between two ribs and
into my lung in order to restabilize its pressure. The tubes ran
into a glass jug that sat on the floor and contained some kind of fluid
from my insides. Kinda gross, really. The incision started
beneath my right shoulder blade, went around the side of my chest and
ended a few inches below my right nipple. (In later years I'd
tell people that I was attacked by a shark, just to see their
expressions.) The nurses weren't thrilled about anybody but
family visiting i.c.u. and I wasn't able to see Alan until I was moved
to a regular hospital room. That first day and a half I was
really out of it, and I slept a lot. When I wasn't sleeping I was
in quite a bit of pain, and the meds were only doing so much to
help. Even the morphine was on a timer, regardless of how many
times I hit the button. That sucked.

By Friday morning I was hobbling very slowly around the room.
What made it really difficult was the damn lung crap bottle. Not
only did I have to wheel the i.v. around, but someone had to carry my
jar if I had to go to the bathroom. Later that day it was removed
(I'll spare you the details of how it feels when they pull two tubes
from your chest cavity) and I felt like a new man. Sort of.

The weekend was coming up and I was dreading more golf on
television. I think I'd rather reinsert the tubes myself than
watch more golf. But it gave me a lot of time to think.
Sure I'd had visitors. Kent and Glen came up once. My
parents and grandmother visiting was a given. Don popped up a
couple of times, as did Alan. It seems like there was a revolving
door at my room and I wished that everyone would've just left me
alone. I was exhausted physically, and all of the mental
tightrope that I'd been walking was weighing down on me as well.
I mean hell, we hadn't even gotten to the treatment phase of the
disease and I still had one more surgery to go. It would have to
wait about six weeks so my body would have a chance to heal from the
thoracotomy.

I'd learned to love demoral and always knew right when to ask so that
they'd give it to me every four hours. Only thing is it makes you
sleepy almost immediately. Then you're out for twenty minutes or
so. When you wake up you start counting down the rest of the
three hours and forty minutes until the next shot. Don't worry -
I didn't get hooked. But it sure made dealing with the pain much
easier.

One day--it must've been Sunday because my parents had gone to church
that morning--there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," I said.

It was Don. "I heard that they finally took away that nasty-ass
jar," he smiled. I didn't fail to notice the killer dimples.

"You again," I smiled.

He crossed the room and plopped down in a chair that also folded out
into a bed, slouching down with his legs stuck out and crossed at the
ankles. It was a good thing I was still feeling like crap,
because it was one of those out-of-the-blue moments that I just wanted
to jump his bones. That flash of horniness passed quickly,
however, as the aching in my side reminded me why I was there in the
first place. I'd figured out long ago that Don and I wouldn't
ever really be more than just friends and had pretty much resigned
myself to ignoring him in a sexual way. But there were times when
sexual feelings were practically overpowering and I had to keep my
brain in check so I wouldn't say anything untoward. At the very
least drooling was out of the question.

"When ya gettin' outta this joint."

"What's today?"

"Sunday."

I sighed. "It's looking more like Tuesday."

"Hey, look at it this way. At least you'll get some sleep, right?"

"Achh. Sleep. I can get plenty of it watching this
crap." I pointed to the television. Golf.

"Get up," he said, rising to his feet.

"What?"

"You walked yet this morning?"

"No."

"Get up. You ready to bust outta here?"

I laughed at him and flipped my covers back to get up. "Gimme
your arm," I said. It was really hard for me to sit up and lean
forward. He reached his arm out and I held onto it, standing
slowly to maintain my balance. The i.v. was in the top of my left
hand and I rolled its stand while we walked, my right hand up on his
shoulder. "Just for a second," I said after he looked at me when
I did that.

"No, you're fine."

We slowly walked towards the door and through it into the hall.
Like all hospitals it was colder than shit. And the cotton
nightie just doesn't cut it when it comes to keeping you warm.
Luckily the halls and rooms were carpeted, which helped a bit.
Walking with my hand high on Don's shoulder hurt the incision site a
bit so I dropped my hand to the crook of his arm, which he bent to
better accommodate me. I felt like we were an old couple walking
up and down the halls of the hospital.

"So what's next after this?" he asked.

"Man, rest," I said. "I'm supposed to take it easy for a couple
of weeks. They told me I can't drive for six, but there's no way
I can stick to that. The theater's been pretty cool about all of
my time off, and that helps a lot. Then in August I'll have a
laparotomy, for exploratory purposes, and hopefully I'll have the
radiation in October."

"What's a laparotomy?"

"They'll go into my belly and check things out."

"Dang, man, more cutting," he said.

'Yeah. About a six inch incision from here to here," and I
pointed from my abdomen to just above my groin.

"Makes doing sit-ups a bitch," he said, and I laughed at that.
"So...."

We were making another turn in the hallway at this point.
"So...?" I said back.

I sighed because I was getting worn out a bit. "Let's take a seat
here," I pointed to the little waiting area at the edge of the hallway.

"You wanna go back to your room?" He had a concerned look on his
face and I winked at him.

"No. Please. I'm so sick of that room." I sat down
slowly, feeling my muscles ache as they stretched with the
effort. "He's doing well. He told me the other night that
the coach wants to make him a first string running back, so he's pretty
happy about that."

"I'll bet. The guy's getting pretty big."

"I know," I laughed a bit. "Hard to imagine he's the same guy
from high school. I bug him about being a 'roid."

"Nahh. I've seen enough of that and you can tell, he's for
real. I'll tell you what--I wouldn't want the dude running at me
any time soon. So, um..."

"Don. Somethin' on your mind?"

"Sorry, it's just kinda odd talking about two guys dating and all--"

I laughed out loud. "You idiot," I jibed. "So 'um' what?"

"Do you think y'all are gonna...I dunno...get back together?" he asked.

"Well, I've had plenty of time here to think about a lot of stuff, and
I've just come to the conclusion that it's better to be friends than to
see each other."

"Really." He looked, I'm not sure how to describe it; not
concerned or shocked, or even taken back. Maybe more like he was
thinking about what I'd said. "And why's that."

"Oh," I said in my less-than-mature thinking, "relationships can just
be messy. You get close to someone, then they're gone.
Having friends...well that's just easier."

"And why's that?" Don asked.

"Well, I guess because you don't get attached as much, so when the
person leaves, which they ultimately do, you don't have to get hurt as
much."

He turned to look at me. "That's kinda fucked up," then he looked
away again.

I shrugged. "Maybe."

He snorted. "No 'maybe' about it, Paul. Part of life is
making friends with people. Sometimes they're around for a long
time, sometimes not. But you can't close yourself off from them."

"But I'm not," I said simply. "I just think that for right now I
don't need to be getting into any kind of relationship. And say
Alan and I got back together--" I stopped myself because this was
kinda weird to me. Don noticed and looked over at me.

"What?"

"Does it not weird you out talking to a gay guy about relationships,
and the guy he once dated?" I said quietly.

Don laughed out loud a short burst, causing the nurses to look up from
their desk. "No," he laughed. "Doesn't bother me at
all. You're such a dork."

"Well??? Anyway, if he and I got back together...shit, he's got
three more years of school and I don't want to go through on-off
stuff. He's a great friend, and I love 'im."

"Well, hopefully you can think some more about your position on dating
people. I mean, I know where you're coming from, and all.
I've been there...back when Elizabeth and I broke up."

"So you know what I'm talking about," I said to him.

"Paul, I was a kid back then."

"I'm not a kid, Don."

"Yeah? And you're not fifty, either. You don't know
everything, Paul. I say this because looking back I realize I was
this close," and he pressed his finger and thumb to nearly touching
each other, "this close to the beginning of a relationship. But I
was stupid. I let it slip by. I was scared, I guess."

"You're a big boy," I joked. "What could you be scared about."

He snorted then leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees, a hand
beneath his chin. I laughed inside as I had a mental image of The
Thinker.

"You're talkin' about Elizabeth right? I mean, you haven't
mentioned anyone else to me that you've been interested in..."

Don looked at me sideways a bit. He smiled into his curled-up
hand, snorted a bit again, shook his head, then turned away from
me. He sat back again and was about to speak when a voice spoke,
rather loudly, down the hallway. "Don't y'all just look like an
old couple, sittin' there." See, I told you I felt like an old
couple. We both looked up to see Alan walking down the hall,
mimicking a crooked old man wobbling on his cane. I couldn't help
but laugh, and Don smiled. "What'chall doin'?" he asked.

"We're planting corn," I said sarcastically. "What does it look
like, 'roid."

"Shut up, dude," I replied. He smiled really big. Don stood
up and I grabbed one arm on each guy to pull myself off of the
chair. I steadied myself and held onto the i.v. holder, then Alan
and I did our "hand thing" which had become second nature to us.
Alan took the holder from my hand and rolled it ahead of us. I
hooked each of my hands into the cooks of their arms. I probably
didn't need to do it but I felt better. The three of us walked
down the hallway to my room, where I dropped their arms and took the
i.v. from Alan. After I got back onto the bed and adjusted the
blankets, Don said that he had to take off. He told Alan goodbye
and wished him luck at training camp this fall, then said goodbye to me.

"Man, I'm bushed!" I said, pressing my head back into the pillows.

Alan picked up the remote. "Want me to turn this down?" he asked.

"You for real? It's friggin' golf, it couldn't get any quieter."

Alan laughed and put the remote back onto my tray, then took a seat in
the chair where Don had been sitting. I looked at him and grinned.

"What?" he chuckled.

"Nothin'," I smiled back.

"You're horny, aren't'cha."

I busted out laughing. "Whatever," I looked away.

"So what'd he say to put you into that mood?"

I rolled my eyes and said, "You dope. It's you I'm looking at."

"Wanna ball each other?" he asked. I died laughing at that and my
side hurt. He had a serious look on his face but I knew he was
kidding. "I'm serious man. I'll bang him right out of your
head." I laughed so hard tears were coming down and my side was
fuckin' killing me by then. He started laughing, too.
Finally he said, "Just thought I'd offer."

"Fuckin' tease," I mumbled. Thankfully, we were able to kid with
each other like that. If there were any two people at that moment
who were like an old couple, it was he and I.

"Man. So what's up with him?" Alan asked.

"Oh, same-ol', same-ol'. In fact he asked me the same about you."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mm hmm." I gave him the general rundown of Don's and my
conversation. Then Alan sat there quietly for a minute before
speaking again.

"He wants you."

"Shut up, dick," and I threw a box of Kleenex at him. It bounced
off of his chest as he sat unflinching.

"He does. Anyone can tell that."

"Puh-lease."

"I'm serious Paul. At least from that conversation. Plus he
hangs out with a gay guy, or is friends with one."

"So do you," I said, at which he gave me a "dip shit" look.

"No. I'm thinkin' that deep down...he wants a crack at'cha."

I laughed again. "Bullshit. But thanks for making me laugh."

"Bullshit 'bullshit', you might think I'm nuts but whether he knows it
or not, he's got something for you."

"He does, does he. Well, I ain't interested," I said.

"No?"

"Nope."

"And how come."

I shook my head a bit. "Nothin' better once you've had the
best!" Then I winked at him.

Alan stood up and made a "goal" sign with his arms in the air, saying
"He scores!!!!" and impersonating a cheering crowd. He always had
a knack for making me laugh.

After a few minutes of flipping through golf and coverage of the
original Woodstock (this was its twentieth anniversary year) as well as
Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon, Alan asked what I'd be doing for
school, whether or not I'd be able to start again in the fall.

"I'm thinking not. My doctor said that until I start receiving
the radiation I won't know how my body will react to it, so he advised
waiting until Winter quarter to start back. I've been thinking
about that, too."

"What about it."

"Well, I don't know if I've had one of those life-changing moments or
not-"

"It wouldn't surprise me, considering," he chimed in.

"True. But I'm really thinking about getting into architecture
school again."

"I thought you couldn't get into Tech," he said.

"That's right. But I heard that there's another school up in
Marietta, a small one, that also has an architecture department.
If I can get into that, then I can transfer down to Tech."

"What school?"

"Southern Institute of Technology," I said in an official-sounding
voice.

"Oh! Southern Tech."

"I guess."

"I didn't know they had a school of architecture."

"Yep. It's pretty small, so that's cool."

"Awesome! You applied yet?"

"No. I have until October to get my application in."

"Will they take your other credits?"

"I imagine they will. I haven't looked really deeply into
it. I'll check it out more when I get out of here."

"When's that?"

"Tuesday."

He nodded. "Cool."

We shot the shit for a while and watched some crap on the tube.

* * * * *

Tuesday finally came and my parents and Don were there to help me with
gathering all of the flowers and balloons that some friends and family
had sent. My parents carried the stuff while Don pushed my wheel
chair. As we neared the elevator, the doors opened up and Alan
was standing inside.

"Perfect timing, Alan," my dad said.

"Hi y'all! Going down?" Alan said.

"I thought we were through with you," Don said. Alan gave us a
big Cheshire cat grin and shook his head "no."

I noticed that he kept watching Don with an amused look on his
face. The five of us were on the elevator; my parents at the
doors, and Don and I behind them with Alan standing next to me. I
felt a wet finger slide in and out of my ear quickly and looked over at
Alan, who stood there looking up at the ceiling whistling a soundless
tune.

"I'm gonna kick your ass for that," I said.

"Mrs. Lyons," Alan said, "Paul swore." My parents chuckled as the
doors opened and we headed into the lobby. I started laughing at
the ridiculousness of it and my side hurt. I put my hand over the
incision area.

"Better watch out," Don said. "You make him bust a stitch and
he's libel to make you sew it back up."

My parents were walking ahead of us. "Oh, Paul knows that I can
'sew', Don. If you like I could show you how it's done?" He
said this with quite an amused look on his face, and Don and I both
caught the double entendre.

Don flipped him a bird, and Alan laughed. I thought to myself
that if these two were always around each other my life could be really
interesting. I doubted that's what I wanted, though. Alan
was nuts for thinking that Don wanted...well, whatever in the hell he
thought Don wanted from me. Don was my friend, plain and simple.

Plain and simple.

Dad pulled the car around then he and Don helped me into the back
seat. As they did I could see Alan standing behind Don.
With one hand he made the shape of an "o" with his fingers, and with
the other he slid one finger in and out of it, all the while nodding
over to Don. I shook my head and laughed at his absurdity.
Don and I. I had no interest in that.

None at all....

* * * * *

The next time I woke up from a surgery I was already in a hospital
room. This time, though, the doctor had inserted a small tube up
through my nose and down into my stomach. When I opened my eyes I
panicked at the intrusion; I was never told that anything like that
would happen. They inserted it as a precaution against
vomiting. If my stomach were to convulse during vomition, then it
could bust open the stitches, which the doctors didn't want. I
didn't want that either.

By now it was mid-August. This time the surgery wasn't as
involved as the previous one, although they ended up removing my spleen
because it "wasn't extremely necessary." A year or two later my
doctor would tell me that I should be vigilant about getting a
pneumonia shot, as well as annual flu shots -- because I didn't have a
spleen. Can I sue for that? I was out of the hospital after three
days that time. Ever have a tube pulled out of your stomach
through your nose? How about a Foley catheter. Good
stuff! I was released on Sunday and was surprised that morning by
a knock on the door: it was Alan. Damn, that made my
day. I wasn't expecting to see him because of football
camp. When I checked his bod, I noted that he was bulking up even
more. Not a huge amount; in fact I was probably the only one who
noticed it.

This time he was the one to push my wheel chair out of the hospital as
my dad picked up the car. I was saddened a bit because I felt
that I really did belong with him. I never said a word because
sometimes you just need to keep your thoughts to yourself. But as
I sat in the chair he leaned down a bit with his forearms resting on
the chair handles just on either side of my head. It was
comfortable. Damn but it was comfortable. I quickly shook
my head of any romantic notions and marinated in the feeling that I
knew he had my back. It wasn't something that was spoken, but it
was surely understood by the both of us. I wondered if anybody
else who saw us that day thought the same thing.

* * * * *

I went in for my radiation prep at the end of September. Because
the location of the lymph node was high in my neck, the field of
radiation was from the tip of my nose down to my sternum. I have
five tattoos, albeit tiny dots: two at my neck, one near each
armpit and one at my sternum. The reason for this is so that they
could line up the machine in the exact same place each time.

It was suggested that I have my dentist make fluoride trays for my
teeth. When they zap you with radiation, over time it could
possibly decrease your saliva production and when that happens you're
prone to having more cavities. Every night for five weeks I slept
with these plastic trays that were formed to my teeth with a few drops
of fluoride in each one. It was weird but I finally got used to
it.

One day in the shower I was shampooing my hair. Not entirely
abnormal, but I noticed that when I would go to rinse out the hair at
the base of my neck it was falling out. A definite reaction to
the radiation. The cool thing about that is that it also
prevented any whiskers from growing on my neck and under my chin, so I
didn't have to shave there for five weeks. The bad thing is that
I lost all sense of taste for the same five weeks. Everything I
ate and drank tasted like water. Do you know how hard it is to
eat food when you've lost the ability to taste it? I'm Italian
and eating is a big deal to us. Thankfully, a week or so after
the radiation was complete, I was able to taste my first meal:
spaghetti with marinara. That was the best spaghetti I've ever
had in my life.

During my stays in the hospital I cogitated on my life and how I felt
that I was being given a second chance at it. Since music was
such a huge part of my life (and it still is) I decided to have a piano
recital. The date was, oddly enough, Beethoven's birthday, which
is in December. My piano teacher had studied and graduated from
Julliard in New York City and he helped me refine all of the songs that
I wanted to play. My thinking was that I wanted to celebrate what
I considered my rebirth, and I wanted to share that with my family and
friends. A piano recital was the best way for me to do
that: share music.

I played some show tunes (Memory, from "Cats" and "Send In The
Clowns"), a couple of Streisand hits, several songs by Scott
Joplin. Those of you unfamiliar with him may know the music from
the movie "The Sting." I also played a couple of Gershwin
tunes. In all, twelve songs plus an encore. Everybody was
there that mattered to me the most. My two "guys", as I'd come to
think of them, were there; Alan and Don even ended up sitting
next to each other. Sounds a little too "80's-movie" I know, but
what can I say.

That year when I woke up on Christmas morning and came downstairs, I
saw that it had snowed during the night. For me, that was the
climax of my "rebirth." And the cool thing was that now
everything had come full circle. You may remember that the night
I came out to my parents it had also started snowing; an annual event
in Atlanta, but still nice just the same.

Life was great. I'd just overcome the biggest hurdle so far in my
life, and I did so with flying colors. I couldn't wait for the
next "big thing." I didn't have to wait very long, however,
because it was right around the corner......

* * * * *
* * *

Well y'all, that's it for this chapter. I hope you didn't mind
all of the medical stuff, but I just wanted to get all of that crap out
of the way. The story is far, far from over. If you'll
indulge me with a little more of your time, I plan on sharing the rest
of it with you.

As usual, let me know if you like it, hate it, want to burn it,
etc. I'm always open to comments, criticisms, advertisements.....